What can you do when you realize that you’re losing the war of ideas? You can rethink some or all of your ideas, seriously considering the unnerving possibility that you might be, well, wrong. You can reconsider how you present your ideas.
Or you can give up on ideas entirely, and attempt to pressure or harass or even terrorize others into some form of surrender. That’s what the the uber-radical Weathermen did in the 1960s and 70s, turning first to violent direct action in the aptly named “days of rage” and then to bombs when the revolution that many in the New Left had been prophesying failed to materialize. That’s what the anti-abortion movement has been doing for decades now, with some in the movement harassing women trying to get abortions while more radical antis bomb clinics and kill doctors. .
And now we’re seeing rhetoric from Men’s Rights Activists that suggests some in that movement may also be giving up on talk. Consider A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam, who declared in a fundraising letter a couple of months back that:
Progress for men will not be gained by debate, reason or typical channels of grievance available to segments of the population that the world actually gives a damn about. The progress we need will only be realized by inflicting enough pain on the agents of hate, in public view, that it literally shocks society out of its current coma.
Elam is – presumably deliberately — vague about what exactly he means when he talks about “inflicting … pain,” and as far as I know he has never explicitly endorsed violence. But he has spoken openly about “stalking” individual feminists and otherwise “fucking their shit up” by, among other things, posting personal information about them on the AVfM-sponsored site Register-Her.com for all would be vigilantes to see. And in the “activism” section of his website he has reprinted a manifesto explicitly calling for the firebombing of courthouses and police stations.
Elam isn’t the only MRA who has officially given up on “debate and reason” in favor of “inflicting … pain” on feminists. The “counter-feminist” wannabe philosopher who calls himself Fidelbogen makes a similar argument in a recent post on his blog:
Feminism is your enemy, and the obligation to treat feminists as fellow human beings is officially waived. They are not fellow human beings, they are ALIENS.
Dehumanizing the enemy always a good start.
[L]et’s not hear any crap about so-called “hate speech”. You see, there is simply no way that you can resist evil, denounce tyranny, or call pernicious things by their right names, without crossing a fine line into “hate speech” or something very like it. Extremism against a bully is no vice, and since bullies have their own moral economy, you are entitled to pay them in their own coin.
It’s not hate speech if you really do hate them?
The important thing to understand about the feminists is, that they will not change their outward behavior unless social heat and pressure are inflicted upon them.
Fidelbogen, a sometime contributor to A Voice for Men, is also vague about what exactly he means by this “social heat and pressure.” He continues:
What, do you think they will stop what they are doing just because somebody intellectually convinces them they are mistaken? They will do no such thing, because they are people with an agenda who know they are “right”, and they lack the gift to see themselves as the rest of the world sees them.
IRONY ALERT. IRONY ALERT.
Over on Reddit, meanwhile, the charming JeremiahMRA – who used to post comments here as Things Are Bad – thinks the “inflict pain” policy should be extended to all women, any time they engage in “bad behavior.” Responding to a poster asking how to handle a disagreement with his mother, he explained his theory in (sometimes redundant) detail, receiving several dozen net upvotes for his post:
The ONLY way you change women’s bad behavior is by punishing them if they won’t start acting like adults. …
The only way you change a woman’s bad behavior is by making sure they know it hurts them. …
Reasoning with her will not work. The only answer is to use the power he has as her SON to threaten to hurt her emotionally. Women are emotional creatures. Nothing else will work. This is what it means to be a man: you do what you have to do so that things will be better in the end, even if you don’t like it. …
It isn’t about convincing her what’s right, it’s about showing her she will suffer if she doesn’t do what’s right. That is the only thing that will work.
The Men’s Rights Movement likes to pretend that is it a civil rights movement. But threats, harassment, hate speech, and emotional blackmail aren’t the tactics of a legitimate civil rights movement. These are the tactics of angry narcissists clinging to retrograde prejudices, who have given up on the war of ideas because on some level they know that history is against them, and that they will never win.
For future reference, how does one do quotations/”blockquotes” of other posts here? Also, I know one should not feed the trolls — which I’m about to do — but…eh, juicy troll is juicy.
Anyway, Roberta says: “Not just asking for sex, but asking for sex in ways that feminists deem unacceptable. For instance, asking a second time after your partner says “no”.”
Oh boy, where to start? First off, like so many here, I’ll ask you for a citation of your claims about “feminist definitions”, even though I know I won’t get anything.
Second, if the hypothetical propositioner (the one asking for sex) was asking someone they met at a bar, and was told no by the proposed, common sense, decency and good judgement would dictate that the propositioner should back off, as asking a stranger after a clear refusal, if not rape in of itself, could quickly lead to rape, as the second asking is coercive and disrespectful of the other party’s lack of interest.
Finally, and speaking only for myself (let me be clear on that), I would not immediately run off and call rape if someone asked me again after I’d initially said no. But if I said no again, then they had better realize I’m being quite clear, and if they still didn’t respect that, then…well, let’s say that self-protection would kick in.
Needless to say, it should be clear you are engaging in the slippery slope fallacy.
@CassandraSays:
Thanks for the warning. So far, feeding the troll has led to some interesting writing, and I’m sometimes quite patient. 🙂
I’m kinda curious to see what Roberta comes up with as well… And waiting for the inevitable moment where NWO jumps in saying “See, you’re defending this horrible radical feminist, who’s saying that yes means no, and no means no, and all men are rapists and that makes no sense at all so checkmate!”
@Morgan
It’s (blockquote) text (/blockquote) but replace the ( and ) with a greater-than and less-than triangle brackets
Morgan: Blockquotes.
You use angle quotes (the “capitals” of the comma and period key) around the word BLOCKQUOTE at the start, and then a virguleBLOCKQUOTE at the end. Let’s see if it appears; /BLOCKQUOTE
So ,BLOCKQUOTE. What you want set off then ,/BLOCKQUOTE
With caps for the angle marks.
Yes certainly have a rather loose definition of coercion if you think asking for something twice is enough to forcibly compel someone to do something.
If I ask you to lend me money twice, am I guilty of theft?
@Morgan:
Do do a blockquote, do something like this:
(blockquote)
Text goes here.
(/blockquote)
Only replace the parenthesis with angled brackets.
Oops, didn’t get the punctuation right on the end:
,/BLOCKQUOTE.
You can italicize with em and /em also in angle marks
@Morgan, go >blockquote<, only with the less-than and greater-than signs reversed. 😀
Also, I don't think anyone much minds feeding the trolls here. There will occasionally be discussion about whether or not we should feed the boring trolls…
False equivalence at its finest, Roberta.
What about in the context of long-term relationship, Morgan?
If one partner expresses reluctance to have sex and the other party says: “Please, we haven’t been intimate in almost 2 weeks,” is the asking party a coercive rapist?
(pay attention, Kirby)
@Roberta:
Sooo… Am I to take it that there is in fact no portion of the link you gave that is evidence for your position? Good to know. 🙂 Guess you’ll have to try again.
(pay attention, Kirby)
Oh, hypocrisy.
@CassandraSays: glad my trolldar is in good shape! It was pinging loud and long.
@Lauralot: Bzzzzzzzzzzzz bzz bzzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzz bz bz bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz@
How is it a false equivalence? Either someone is compelled to act against their will, or they are not. What they are being asked to do in immaterial to the principle.
Worst lawyer ever.
Yeah, no rebuttal. I’m hardly surprised. I’ll take that as conceding the point.
Yeah, this *REALLY* makes me believe you’re a lawyer, halfwit.
I thought you’d try special pleading. In that case, you don’t mean rape; most rape cases don’t end in serious penalties, even when convicted (previous cites to f’rex RAINN materials demonstrate this, f’rex).
Because it has an unslippery definition that doesn’t mean whatever I want, I specified felonies. I don’t believe you when you say you’re a lawyer, but you certainly are trying to convince us you’re one (And failing miserably. I’m glad DSC is behind paywalls, since I’m not)
Oh, fyi, acquittal is ludicrously low.
http://rasmusen.org/papers/overheads/prosecutors-overheads.pdf
Older than I like, but still not that old. 2% acquittal for murder. The rest is hung juries.
Not really. You’re stuck dealing with Meriken culture.
Someone trying to make an argument by authority without even having the authority they claim.
In that they have gone all “ZOMG FALSE ACCUSER” without calling us sluts. That’s civil! Who gives a shit about civility when people argue for foul things, again?
I remember you, it just doesn’t really give you any more credence on the matter.
Really, there’s not much more I can say here beyond repeating “worst lawyer ever.”
Kirby, I’ve found what you are looking for. A feminist who thinks asking for sex twice is rape (Morgan). Told you they exist.
One feminist =/= blanket feminist viewpoint.
Not fucking hard.
BTW @ Lauralot. I just wanted to clarify again, NMMNG is intimating that most people with SPD are asexuals. not that most asexuals have SPD. I.e. he’s not armchair diagnosing asexuals but he’s erasing the sexual diversity of people with SPD without any cites to back him up
@Roberta:
I’m just double-checking something here, so forgive me for the silly question.
If one partner says “Please can we have sex? We haven’t been intimate for two weeks!” and the other partner says “yes,” and they go on to have sex, is that rape?
It depends. My sister was was walking alone at night in an area without many people around. Three men approached her and asked her to give them money. At first she thought they were kidding, and she said she’d rather keep her money. Then they moved so that they were surrounding her and asked again. She said all she had was a $20, and they said that would be fine. She handed it over, because she was really scared. No weapons, no overt threats. Will you concede at least that those men were guilty of coercive behavior, if not theft?
@cloudiah
In that case there is a clear implicit threat of violence if you would not comply with their request. Threats of violence (explicit or implicit) are coercive. Simply asking more than once in a non-threatening way is not.
Oh snap if you ask twice it isn’t theft.
So asking to stop twice isn’t rape.
Good point.
So like, if you ask me to lend you money, and I tell you no two times, and you take it anyway, its a foregone conclusion that I probably consented to having my money taken.